Diablo 4 was revealed yesterday in a swirl of blood and grime and men talking about the lure of the darkness both in the trailer and onstage. I chatted with a couple of the developers about the new world they ve created, the monsters they filled it up with, and their painterly inspirations. And I played a bit. It was surprisingly well lit.
If you’ve not been following PC games goings-on across the week, catch up on some of the big stories quick in our noncomprehensive Weekly News Digest. Do also read The Updates Update for some of the week’s notable patches and updates.
This week brought a bevvy of Blizzard announcements out BlizzCon, including Diablo IV and Overwatch 2. In welcome anti-exclusive news, EA games are returning to Steam and Death Stranding is coming our way next summer.
In all the hubbub of the week, you might’ve missed some of the patches and updates rolled out to games. Presenting the Weekly Updates Update, a noncomprehensive roundup of new maps and characters and balance tweaks and fixes and such which caught my eye over the week – including a few we haven’t posted about.
This week, Destiny got a new dungeon, Battlefield went to the Pacific, WWE 2K20 got a little less busted, and Halloween continued.
Stock up on jerky and moisturiser, because American Truck Simulator is headed to Utah when its next expansion launches on November 7th, developers SCS Software have announced. The seventh state continues the truck ’em up’s long journey east with another 3500 digimiles of virtuaroad. Watch the new trailer below for a peek at Utah sights including those iconic red rocks, a big hole in the ground, a hole in a rock, and A DINOSAUR DRESSED AS A COWBOY? I will overcome my physical discomfort at all this notseaness if I get to see a load of weird dinosaur statues and murals.
I love food. To me, food isn’t just something I have to consume periodically throughout the day in order to survive — it’s a crucial part of my understanding of the world. I’m a food-oriented tourist (burrata in Florence! smoked fish in Copenhagen!) and a food-oriented friend (come over for dinner! let’s go out for brunch!). Because of my penchant for produce and fervor for fruits, Thanksgiving is one of my all-time favourite American holidays.
To celebrate the approach of Thanksgiving (and in my dedicated and ongoing journey to teach you, dear reader, how to cook), today’s free games are all about food.
Here we are, Halloween is over, and video games are still fun of Halloween events. Bit weird. Feels a bit sad. Get over it, yeah? Okay, I did once keep a Christmas up until April because I missed the council’s pick-up days and came to quite like having it around. Maybe this Halloween will regrow on me. Even if the shops are quite loudly insisting I now start celebrating Christmas. I can’t maintain these levels of excitement forever, The Man.
What are you playing this weekend? Here’s what we’re clicking on!
The best shooters endure. While other genres warp beyond recognition, there is something solid about the first-person shooter that makes it as dependable as a nice big AK-47. Maybe it s the gung-ho simplicity – look down a barrel and pull the trigger. It’s as fun to fire a double-barrelled shotgun from an early 90s FPS as the slick shotties of today. For that reason, this list runs the gamut from genre classics to those released in the last year. There’s bound to be something for you in this, our list of the best 50 FPS games on PC. Let s lock and/or load.
Blizzard announced the next Hearthstone expansion, Descent Of Dragons, today at BlizzCon. It’ll add new cards with new abilities – the usual expansion stuff. More curiously, Blizzard also announced Hearthstone: Battlegrounds, a new mode they say is inspired by the Auto Chess. Y’know, the burgeoning genre which began as the Dota 2 mod Dota Auto Chess and has already spawned Valve’s Dota Underlords and the League Of Legends mode Teamfight Tactics. That is not what I expected when I first heard the word “Battlegrounds” on the stream.
Blizzard could announce Diablo IV, Overwatch 2, a new WoW expansion, and Hearthstone Auto Chess live on stage at BlizzCon–and they did–but none of that would sit right if they didn’t address the cloud over this year’s fanfest. Their decision to harshly punish a Hearthstone pro player for declaring “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our age!” in a post-match interview has upset many over the past month, including players, employees, commentators, and members of the US Congress. Even Blizzard’s attempt to explain themselves only dug the hole deeper. They couldn’t avoid the issue. So at BlizzCon opening ceremony today, Blizzard president J. Allen Brack began with an apology.
After a run of leaks and rumours, Blizzard today announced Overwatch 2 at BlizzCon. The FPS sequel will feature “a ton” of PvE and story bits, director Jeff Kaplan said in stage at BlizzCon, including “highly replayable” cooperative missions. A new core PvP mode is in too, along with new maps, new characters, and new looks for old characters. It’ll feature cross-game multiplayer with the first Overwatch and, my god, cosmetic doodads unlocked and bought in the first will actually carry over into the sequel. Come watch the announcement cinematic and first wee gamevid.